Street Fighter IV confirmed for consoles this winter

When details of Street Fighter IV first emerged late in 2007, Capcom quickly warned that the game was "more than a year away" from being ready for home consoles. When it hit Japanese arcades midway through 2008, there was still no firm news on the release, save rumours that it wouldn't be out until the end of 2009.

In August the producer of the upcoming Street Fighter movie The Legend of Chun Li let slip that SFIV's release would coincide with his movie, but this was never officially confirmed by Capcom. Talking to GameSpot today, Capcom still didn't confirm the movie date tie-in but did say that the game was "definitely" coming this winter and that Europe could expect to see the much-anticipated game "at roughly the same time as the US."

Street Fighter IV is coming to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and all the features from the arcades--including the new unlockable outfits--will be coming to consoles, according to a Capcom representative at TGS earlier this month. As well as the arcade roster, the versions for consoles include Sakura, Dan, Fei Long, and Cammy. Capcom has also said that the new nonplayable boss characters from the arcade will make the transition to consoles as playable characters. One of these, Akuma/Gouki, was playable on the PS3 and Xbox 360 at the Tokyo Game Show, and you can read GameSpot's impressions of that here, along with more information about Sakura

The game will be making a rare playable appearance in the UK during the London Games Festival at the Eurogamer Expo next week and will feature 2D fighting with a 3D art style, going back to the series' roots after a number of abortive attempts to move it into full 3D. It will also be playable at the MCM Expo at ExCel in London this weekend.

GameSpot will also bring you more on the console versions of Street Fighter IV as the release nears and all the new characters are revealed.